I'm looking for the cheapest and best domain name registration (not web hosting) service out there- did a quick Google search and there are a bunch that are available for just under $9. Can anyone vouch for any particular company?

What are the pertinent questions to ask about domain name registration services? Who has the best frills? (i.e., FREE Personalized email addresses (email forwarding), Name management, URL Forwarding, URL Framing (masking, cloaking), Transfer of ownership, etc.) Which of these really matter? How much, if anything, does customer service count for? Does anyone have any horror stories?

I'm looking for the cheapest and best domain name registration (not web hosting) service out there- did a quick Google search and there are a bunch that are available for just under $9. Can anyone vouch for any particular company?

PG and all my personal domains are done through Joker.com. They haven't gotten in my way at all. If its not something you feel comfortable doing, then I'd have to recommend going through a hosting service that registers it for you (especially as what you talk about in the second half of your post really have to do with domain hosting and not domain registration.)

Domain Discover (domaindiscover.com or buydomains.com) is the best that I've found so far.

The only thing that really matters is the quality of service. All of the other stuff is just frills. I've had domains hosted with companies that had bad service, and I can assure you that it's the death knell for maintaining your domain. After using several others, my associates and I found that Domain Discover was the best at dealing with problems quickly and resolving them.

I registered mine with GoDaddy.com... and I can't recommend them. The problem I ran into, which is not mentioned in their documentation, so you don't discover it until after you've registered with them, is that they'll only accept name servers which have an entry in the WHOIS for one of the major domains. Which means if you want to set up your own domain and use your own name servers, you've got a chicken-and-egg problem...

What I ultimately wound up having to do was use the free DNS service at granitecanyon.com as my DNS, since their servers are registered with WHOIS.

The problem you ran into wasn't just a problem with GoDaddy.com, any domain registrar would have given you this problem. For any server to serve as the primary name server for a domain, it must have a SERVER entry in the root DNS servers. Most registrars will let you register servers as well as domains, but you absolutely positively must register your servers. If your name server isn't registered, there's no way for anyone to find it.

In general, running your own DNS to host domains is non-trivial. If you are going to run your own servers though, it's worth taking the time to learn how the system works. The Linux Network Administrator's Guide (NAG) is one of your best bets for learning about this kind of thing.

The problem you ran into wasn't just a problem with GoDaddy.com, any domain registrar would have given you this problem. For any server to serve as the primary name server for a domain, it must have a SERVER entry in the root DNS servers. Most registrars will let you register servers as well as domains, but you absolutely positively must register your servers. If your name server isn't registered, there's no way for anyone to find it.

In general, running your own DNS to host domains is non-trivial. If you are going to run your own servers though, it's worth taking the time to learn how the system works. The Linux Network Administrator's Guide (NAG) is one of your best bets for learning about this kind of thing.

Have you dealt with GoDaddy? I understand DNS; I run the DNS servers for the organization I work for, and ran DNS servers for another organization before that. I've been running DNS servers for eight years now.

What they were asking for wasn't a DNS entry -- it was a WHOIS entry, which is a different thing. Before they'd make a SERVER entry in DNS for you, they first wanted that server name to be listed in WHOIS as a name server.

This gets especially fun in some cases. For example, here where I work, someone decided to register a domain for a web site they were putting up (and, of course, they didn't bother to talk to us over here in IT first). They registered with GoDaddy, then found that GoDaddy wouldn't let them put our DNS servers in as the servers for their domain.

We're the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and our official domain is dep.state.fl.us -- a third-level domain. The people who run the .us domain will not list third-level domains in their WHOIS. Thus, even though our DNS servers are perfectly valid DNS servers which are serving more than a dozen other domains, GoDaddy wouldn't let them be put in as the DNS servers for the domain these folks had purchased.

We're had other people here get domains from register.com, Network Solutions, and a couple of other companies that I forget -- and GoDaddy.com is the only one which has had this requirement.

Thanks for all the feedback! After some more searching, APlus.net is the best price for domain registration that I've found ($7.95/yr). I'm not looking for any web hosting services yet as I've not quite ready to set up a full webpage. I just want to register the name of my game in advance, if I do decide to go forward with the website.

I spoke with a sales rep from APlus.net and he said the domain name service is basic, no frills, and is a flat fee with no hidden charges. Is there anything else I should be aware of for domain registration (not web hosting)?

I can only think of one, overriding consideration, and that is security and responsibility. Be sure that your domain registrar doesn't let just anyone change your whois info., and be sure that your administrative, technical and billing contacts are accurate and stay accurate. People can and do hijack domains, and out-of-date contact info. can lead to major nightmares if a departing employee or partner wants to make your life difficult. If you are incorporated, under no circumstances should you allow a domain registration to happen showing the person doing the registering or any other individual as the owner.

--JB, who's seen all too many of those evil situations and the headaches & expense they cause

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